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The Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs has represented both individuals and groups seeking to vindicate their civil rights. For more than 40 years, it has handled over 5,000 civil rights cases, in employment, housing, public accommodations, and other aspects of urban life. It represents people with claims of discrimination based on race, gender, national origin, disability, age, religion, and sexual orientation. It assists immigrants seeking asylum and other help. It works for education reform in the DC Public Schools. Leveraging its own broad expertise in discrimination litigation with the resources of Washington, D.C.’s private bar, the Committee’s litigation efforts have become nationally known for landmark court victories, record judgments, and precedent-setting consent decrees. Its capacity to mobilize the private bar has made it possible for the Committee to provide its clients more than 50,000 hours of quality legal representation every year.

WashLaw4CR
RT @JonSmithWLC: Barring employment b/c of conviction discriminates against people of color. This case will ensure the race discrimination…

Fri Dec 08 15:43:01 +0000 2017

WashLaw4CR
A class of African-American applicants and employees who were denied employment by WMATA or one of its contractors… https://t.co/UbiKubNwyW

Fri Dec 08 14:57:34 +0000 2017

WashLaw4CR
The struggle for racial and economic justice is a difficult one. Discrimination and inequality bring clients to our… https://t.co/D5wgkLzg3L

Thu Dec 07 19:46:18 +0000 2017

WashLaw4CR
RT @JonSmithWLC: Diversity and inclusion require more than pronouncements. Policy and law are necessary. @councilofdc protect the Paid Fami…

Thu Dec 07 13:37:32 +0000 2017

WashLaw4CR
"I was shocked to learn that this individual had not had representation at his prior hearings and was left to navig… https://t.co/0AbrFo9W1c

Wed Dec 06 21:06:19 +0000 2017

WashLaw4CR
RT @LawyersComm: Our nation is strongest when every one of us can contribute and share ideas, and when everyone’s basic rights and dignity…

Wed Dec 06 20:24:37 +0000 2017

WashLaw4CR
RT @LawyersComm: Public accommodation laws have always played a vital role in ensuring that all businesses are #OpenToAll on a nondiscrimin…

Tue Dec 05 15:58:48 +0000 2017

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Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs
Prisoners too often suffer horrific abuses. Charles Murphy was left with a broken eye socket after correctional officer Robert Smith struck him in the eye, choked him and threw him into the metal toilet in his cell. Murphy was handcuffed during the attack. A nurse found him in his cell, stripped of his clothing. His eyesight was permanently damaged.
The Committee filed a brief along with eight other civil rights groups urging the Supreme Court that, when victims are subjected to this level of torture, a 1996 federal law does not require judges to reduce jury awards of victim compensation in such cases by 25%. Read the full brief below.

10/9/2017 1:37:17 PM

Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs
Today, on the deadline for the last DACA renewal applications to be received by immigration, CASA and a legal team that includes Arnold & Porter, Kaye Scholer, LLP, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP and the Civil Rights Clinic of the Howard University School of Law, announced they are suing the federal government over the elimination of the successful Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which has given work status to more 800,000 immigrants who came to the United States as minors. The action is filed on behalf of organizations from Maryland, California, Washington, Michigan, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Arizona & Connecticut, as well as the national network of providers.
The coalition’s lawsuit argues that the government did not follow proper procedures in ending the program and was instead motivated by an unconstitutional racial animus against Mexican and Central American DACA beneficiaries. The suit seeks to reinstate DACA and protect the privacy of individuals who were induced to submit sensitive personal information to immigration officials when they applied.
The information provided by the applicants was never meant to be used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to terrorize DACA applicants and their families. Despite repeated assurances that their information would not be shared with ICE, the administration is now backing away from those assurances, creating widespread fear in the DREAMer community.
During a press conference today, just a few miles from U.S District Court for the District of Maryland where the lawsuit was filed, DACA recipients and their allies spelled out the importance of the legal action.
“Our suit seeks to reinstate the DACA program, which was ended in an inhumane and arbitrary manner without following legally required procedures and is one more manifestation of the racist tactics this administration has implemented to target, dehumanize and deport immigrants, especially immigrants from Latin America,” said CASA’s Executive Director Gustavo Torres. “We also seek to hold the federal government to its promise that the information DREAMers submitted on their DACA applications will be kept private and not used for immigration enforcement against them or their families.”
For DACA recipients, the situation is urgent.
“When my DACA expires in June, I’ll lose my job and my hopes for the future. I am joining this lawsuit to demand that the government honor its commitment to DREAMers and their families, and immediately reinstate the DACA program,” said Brenda Moreno Martinez, a DACA participant from Baltimore.
To add insult to injury, many DACA recipients believe the government has betrayed them, promising them a benefit but now using the information gathered through that process to expedite their removal.
“The United States made a commitment to fairly treat these young people, who came to this country as children and built a life here. They bravely came forward and have participated in a process that acknowledges the justice of their request for status to live, work and learn in this country,” said Matthew Handley, Litigation Director of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. “The President’s actions with regard to DACA are plainly illegal and unjust.”
“As our complaint emphasizes, the DACA program asked these young people -- who came to this country with no intent to violate the immigration laws -- to trust the government with highly sensitive personal information. It would be unconstitutional, as well as unconscionable, for the government to betray their trust,” added John A. Freedman, a partner with Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP.
Coalition Files Lawsuit against Federal Government to Keep DACA in Place
http://www.washlaw.org/news/640-coalition-files-lawsuit-against-federal-government-to-keep-daca-in-place

10/5/2017 6:47:12 PM

Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs
CASA de Maryland v. Donald Trump
DACA press conference!
Today we are proud to represent Casa along with Howard University School of Law Clinical Law Center, Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP and Willkie Farr & Gallagher in a suit against the Trump administration to fight the illegal targeting of DACA recipients. #DACA #Dreamers #Immigration

10/5/2017 2:43:01 PM

Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs
Using the pseudonym John Doe, an unaccompanied immigrant minor who is confined to the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center filed a lawsuit today on behalf of himself and other detained immigrant children challenging the conditions in the Center. The complaint, filed by Wiley Rein LLP and the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs (WLC), describes the systemic and routine denial of necessary mental health care, racial and national origin discrimination by staff, excessive force, and the extreme and inappropriate use of restraints and seclusion. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, the lawsuit seeks to remedy a range of violations of the United States Constitution and seeks an injunction from the federal court to reform the practices at the Center.
There are approximately 30 immigrant children confined to the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center in Staunton, Virginia. The Center is one of only two secure detention facilities for immigrant children in the country. Each of these young people entered the United States escaping violence in their home countries, predominantly in Mexico and Central America.
“These children should be treated with compassion,” said Christine T. Dinan, a staff attorney at the WLC who is representing Doe in the case. “They are escaping violence and trauma at home and seeking the protection of United States, only to be placed in punitive and abusive conditions. This lawsuit seeks to address abuses in the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center that should never have been allowed to exist.”
Pursuant to federal law, unaccompanied immigrant minors are placed in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement of the Department of Health and Human Services. Despite federal law requiring that unaccompanied minors “be promptly placed in the least restrictive setting that is in the best interest of the child,” these young people are being held in a facility designed for the punitive confinement of youths who are adjudicated delinquents.
"Especially given the increased level of ICE apprehensions of undocumented immigrants in general and young people in particular in recent days, it is critical for the courts to establish and enforce clear standards on the conditions in which detainees may be confined,” said Wiley Rein Pro Bono Partner Theodore A. Howard. “We hope that this action will help set the tone in this regard."
Wiley Rein and Washington Lawyers’ Committee File Fifth Amendment Complaint on Behalf of Immigrants Detained in Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center
http://www.washlaw.org/news/639-wiley-rein-and-washington-lawyers-committee-file-fifth-amendment-complaint-on-behalf-of-immigrants-detained-in-shenandoah-valley-juvenile-center

Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs
Yesterday, we filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court challenging Trump's discriminatory travel ban. We joined a number of civil rights groups including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Advocates for Youth, Center for Reproductive Rights, Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, Mississippi Center forJustice, National Center for Lesbian Rights, National Urban League, and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice.
http://www.washlaw.org/news/636-the-committee-files-amicus-brief-in-the-supreme-court-challenging-trump-s-discriminatory-travel-ban

9/14/2017 2:17:48 PM

Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs
August in DC is usually a quiet month, but ours was far from restful. Read below about our efforts to address the affordable housing crisis for families, the abusive isolation practices in federal prisons, and the failure of the Social Security Administration to be accessible to the blind.
Thank you for partnering with us on these important litigation and policy initiatives.
http://mailchi.mp/washlaw.org/july-2517465?e=438abb3879

9/12/2017 2:00:58 PM

Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs
"Former inmate Sherry Richburg, 63, who was convicted of heroin distribution, wrote in an affidavit that inconsistent access to antibiotics during her two-year incarceration at Fluvanna caused her severe pain and forced her to have a femur transplant in her leg replaced with cement.
She lost 40 pounds, she wrote, and the cement shattered when she fell trying to go to the bathroom. After her release this year, the plaintiffs say, Richburg’s leg was amputated to her hip.
“I was punished for my crime and did my time,” Richburg said in an affidavit. “But Fluvanna punished me a second time when the medical staff did not take care of me.”"
Read more from the Washington Post on our our motion for contempt against Virginia Department of Corrections.

9/7/2017 1:20:17 PM

Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs
Charlottesville, Va. — Women incarcerated at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women (FCCW) filed a motion for contempt in the Federal District Court in Charlottesville on Wednesday, asking the court to enforce a class action Settlement Agreement decided upon last year. The agreement, approved by Judge Norman K. Moon on February 5, 2016, requires supervision of the medical care systems at the prison by an independent Compliance Monitor for at least three years. The women charge that FCCW continues to fail to provide constitutionally adequate medical care in violation of the agreement.
More...
Women at Fluvanna Prison File Contempt Motion Alleging VDOC Continues to Fail to Provide Adequate Medical Care
http://www.washlaw.org/news/635-women-in-fluvanna-prison-file-contempt-motion

9/6/2017 4:18:55 PM

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